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Regardless of whether "everyone is religious," everyone certainly has revelatory beliefs, i.e. beliefs that were not reasoned to. Christian thinkers have spill

by slibhb 5y ago

Regardless of whether "everyone is religious," everyone certainly has revelatory beliefs, i.e. beliefs that were not reasoned to. Christian thinkers have spilled a lot of ink attempting to clarify the boundary between reason and revelation whereas, in the secular world, many people do not seem to understand that many of their beliefs (particularly the foundational ones) are revealed.

tolbish 5y ago
You are confusing secularism with naturalism.
joe_the_user 5y ago
As a non-religious person, certainly I understand many of my beliefs come from convention or intuition or whatever non-rational source, sure. But I don't have any meta-belief telling me to hold onto given beliefs-that-seem-implausible-or-unverifiable because I'll be rewarded in the end or because it's a test or whatever. I don't continually change whatever belief I know is arbitrary but that's because consistency has some utility so point remains. Basically, I have no trouble with non-rational beliefs and behaviors. But religious specifically espouses irrationalist beliefs - irrationalism being the exhortation to keep, cultivate and fixate beliefs beyond the rational. Institutions other than religion, various flavors of Stalinism say, promote faith, fixating one's beliefs and so-forth. I'm against those too. But a wide variety of secular belief systems are against the irrationalist approach - some versions of liberal religion try to escape it too but as people observe, these folks are kind of becoming non-religious. Edit: Just generally, "everything not-wholly-rational is a religion" is a slippery argument that's being way-abused in this thread.
- simonklitj 5y ago
  What is rational? Is not rationality subjective? What you might deem irrational others might deem perfectly rational, and vice-versa, what you might deem rational others might deem quite obviously irrational. Are we to see experiences as rational explanation of a phenomena? Sure, I see and feel a rock, and I verify its existence rationally. I smell food and verify its existence rationally. What about people experiencing a divine being communicating to them, then? No, we must disregard this as hallucination or a psychological problem. Only what we (and by we I mean the "educated western world") in our pre-determined frame of rationality deem rational can ever be rational, and all that falls outside must naturally be considered irrational irrespective of its potential rationality in relation to other experiences we might call rational. Really (I think), something being rational is a state of mind, a common understanding with our peers. In a church most would agree that their belief is rational, not out of ignorance (though here you might disagree), but out of shared acceptance of a different frame of rationality, essentially accepting other experiences as being able to feed to rationality than those you might accept. I guess the point I'm trying to make (and I might be way off) is that when you say that religiosity espouses irrationalist beliefs, they're irrational to you, within your frame of rationalism. To someone else you're the ignorant one who's fighting tooth and nail. Edit: To those down voting I would love to engage further in conversation about this!
  - jart 5y ago
    Rational means you'll make choices that benefit yourself. It's one of the core assumptions of game theory, economics, and policymaking. All the math breaks as soon as that's not the case because irrational is unpredictable. What's nice about rational agency is that it makes cooperation without hierarchy possible so it's been known to rustle the jimmies of the first estate.
    - skissane 5y ago
      There are at least two forms of rationality – epistemic rationality (aka theoretical rationality), and instrumental rationality. Your comment doesn't clearly draw the distinction between them. In the context of discussions about the rationality of religious belief, we are primarily talking about epistemic/theoretical rationality, although non-epistemic rationality does sometimes come up (for example, Pascal's wager). Some people think epistemic rationality can be reduced to instrumental rationality, but the philosopher Thomas Kelly wrote what is (to me at least) a pretty convincing refutation of that viewpoint: https://www.princeton.edu/~tkelly/papers/epistemicasinstrumental.pdf https://www.princeton.edu/~tkelly/papers/epistemicasinstrume...
      - jart 5y ago
        I'm familiar with the rationalist movement and all the rationalists I've met have been wonderful people with few exceptions. I hadn't heard of epistemic rationality, but I find it interesting how the LessWrong definition (top search result) makes it sound like self-criticism and atonement.
        skissane 5y ago
        One concern I have is how closely many people associate "rationality" with the "rationalist movement" (LessWrong, etc). Rationality has been discussed by philosophers for well over 2000 years. Aristotle famously declared that rationality was the feature that distinguished human beings from lesser animals. Most of those philosophers had radically different views from those of the contemporary "rationalist movement". Even today, many thinkers who radically disagree with the "rationalist movement" still believe in the importance of rationality, they just disagree with the "rationalist movement" on what actually counts as "rational".
- failwhaleshark 5y ago
  Religion, spiritual beliefs, ghosts, lottery ticket "investing," superstitions, luck, horoscopes, phobias, ritual sacrifices, Capgras delusions/changelings, and faith healing are examples of what I categorize as magical thinking. These are the ways of animals who cannot control their emotions long-enough to think clearly and honestly between banging on bones in front of a monolith. If the average member of society is ever to progress beyond being a bunch of easily-misled rubes herded into tribal cult ideological pens, something needs to change where decent, intelligent people are lionized over minimally-useful celebrities and charlatans. (The United States was founded by primarily anti-intellectual merchants and landowners who scoffed at the Old World's stodginess and intellectual pursuits.)
  - onion2k 5y ago
    phobias That's an odd thing to put in your list. Phobias aren't something people choose to believe in. They're specifically an irrational, subconscious pattern of behaviour. That isn't a belief.
    - failwhaleshark 5y ago
      It's only odd for people with external locus-of-control magical beliefs that things "just happen" to them. Phobias are irrational fears most people choose not to overcome. This is in contrast to people who aren't ruled by fear, and confront and overcome their fears. Therefore, a lack of agency argument would be moot. And, phobias aren't behaviors, they're dysfunctional, intrusive, reflex feelings related to particular triggers.
Haiatu 5y ago
Non religious people call this 'science'. 'We' think about the big bang 'we' wrote the book on it. Religion writes books about 'gods' and repeat stories from the past. Math unites people across the globe. Everyone agrees globally on the scientific truth. I understand that there are plenty of countries which you would prefer not to life in but i do believe in my country but my country is a good one. We don't kill people anymore because they are different than the norm.

by slibhb 5y ago

tolbish 5y ago

You are confusing secularism with naturalism.

joe_the_user 5y ago

As a non-religious person, certainly I understand many of my beliefs come from convention or intuition or whatever non-rational source, sure. But I don't have any meta-belief telling me to hold onto given beliefs-that-seem-implausible-or-unverifiable because I'll be rewarded in the end or because it's a test or whatever. I don't continually change whatever belief I know is arbitrary but that's because consistency has some utility so point remains. Basically, I have no trouble with non-rational beliefs and behaviors. But religious specifically espouses irrationalist beliefs - irrationalism being the exhortation to keep, cultivate and fixate beliefs beyond the rational. Institutions other than religion, various flavors of Stalinism say, promote faith, fixating one's beliefs and so-forth. I'm against those too. But a wide variety of secular belief systems are against the irrationalist approach - some versions of liberal religion try to escape it too but as people observe, these folks are kind of becoming non-religious. Edit: Just generally, "everything not-wholly-rational is a religion" is a slippery argument that's being way-abused in this thread.

simonklitj 5y ago
What is rational? Is not rationality subjective? What you might deem irrational others might deem perfectly rational, and vice-versa, what you might deem rational others might deem quite obviously irrational. Are we to see experiences as rational explanation of a phenomena? Sure, I see and feel a rock, and I verify its existence rationally. I smell food and verify its existence rationally. What about people experiencing a divine being communicating to them, then? No, we must disregard this as hallucination or a psychological problem. Only what we (and by we I mean the "educated western world") in our pre-determined frame of rationality deem rational can ever be rational, and all that falls outside must naturally be considered irrational irrespective of its potential rationality in relation to other experiences we might call rational. Really (I think), something being rational is a state of mind, a common understanding with our peers. In a church most would agree that their belief is rational, not out of ignorance (though here you might disagree), but out of shared acceptance of a different frame of rationality, essentially accepting other experiences as being able to feed to rationality than those you might accept. I guess the point I'm trying to make (and I might be way off) is that when you say that religiosity espouses irrationalist beliefs, they're irrational to you, within your frame of rationalism. To someone else you're the ignorant one who's fighting tooth and nail. Edit: To those down voting I would love to engage further in conversation about this!
- jart 5y ago
  Rational means you'll make choices that benefit yourself. It's one of the core assumptions of game theory, economics, and policymaking. All the math breaks as soon as that's not the case because irrational is unpredictable. What's nice about rational agency is that it makes cooperation without hierarchy possible so it's been known to rustle the jimmies of the first estate.
  - skissane 5y ago
    There are at least two forms of rationality – epistemic rationality (aka theoretical rationality), and instrumental rationality. Your comment doesn't clearly draw the distinction between them. In the context of discussions about the rationality of religious belief, we are primarily talking about epistemic/theoretical rationality, although non-epistemic rationality does sometimes come up (for example, Pascal's wager). Some people think epistemic rationality can be reduced to instrumental rationality, but the philosopher Thomas Kelly wrote what is (to me at least) a pretty convincing refutation of that viewpoint: https://www.princeton.edu/~tkelly/papers/epistemicasinstrumental.pdf https://www.princeton.edu/~tkelly/papers/epistemicasinstrume...
    - jart 5y ago
      I'm familiar with the rationalist movement and all the rationalists I've met have been wonderful people with few exceptions. I hadn't heard of epistemic rationality, but I find it interesting how the LessWrong definition (top search result) makes it sound like self-criticism and atonement.
      - skissane 5y ago
        One concern I have is how closely many people associate "rationality" with the "rationalist movement" (LessWrong, etc). Rationality has been discussed by philosophers for well over 2000 years. Aristotle famously declared that rationality was the feature that distinguished human beings from lesser animals. Most of those philosophers had radically different views from those of the contemporary "rationalist movement". Even today, many thinkers who radically disagree with the "rationalist movement" still believe in the importance of rationality, they just disagree with the "rationalist movement" on what actually counts as "rational".
failwhaleshark 5y ago
Religion, spiritual beliefs, ghosts, lottery ticket "investing," superstitions, luck, horoscopes, phobias, ritual sacrifices, Capgras delusions/changelings, and faith healing are examples of what I categorize as magical thinking. These are the ways of animals who cannot control their emotions long-enough to think clearly and honestly between banging on bones in front of a monolith. If the average member of society is ever to progress beyond being a bunch of easily-misled rubes herded into tribal cult ideological pens, something needs to change where decent, intelligent people are lionized over minimally-useful celebrities and charlatans. (The United States was founded by primarily anti-intellectual merchants and landowners who scoffed at the Old World's stodginess and intellectual pursuits.)
- onion2k 5y ago
  phobias That's an odd thing to put in your list. Phobias aren't something people choose to believe in. They're specifically an irrational, subconscious pattern of behaviour. That isn't a belief.
  - failwhaleshark 5y ago
    It's only odd for people with external locus-of-control magical beliefs that things "just happen" to them. Phobias are irrational fears most people choose not to overcome. This is in contrast to people who aren't ruled by fear, and confront and overcome their fears. Therefore, a lack of agency argument would be moot. And, phobias aren't behaviors, they're dysfunctional, intrusive, reflex feelings related to particular triggers.

Haiatu 5y ago

Non religious people call this 'science'. 'We' think about the big bang 'we' wrote the book on it. Religion writes books about 'gods' and repeat stories from the past. Math unites people across the globe. Everyone agrees globally on the scientific truth. I understand that there are plenty of countries which you would prefer not to life in but i do believe in my country but my country is a good one. We don't kill people anymore because they are different than the norm.